Welcome to the second in a four part series we are calling Trend Spotting, written by futurist and friend of Callaghan Innovation, David Mattin.
Over this series David will supercharge your ability to be a trend-driven innovator helping you spot powerful emerging trends that have deep relevance in the agritech space.
I hope you enjoy it, and I would be keen to hear what you think!
Pro Tip - Busy? Why not listen to this instead: Listen here.
Trendspotting with David Mattin - Part 2
Learn to spot emerging trends, and you’ll supercharge your ability to innovate.
In the first email in this four-part series on trend-driven innovation (read it here), we looked at the nature and usefulness of trends.
Trends, we established, are all about emerging human behaviours, mindsets, and expectations. That means they change what people out there — including your customers and clients — expect from you.
Most important, trends are opportunities. They can empower you to build new agritech products, services, business models and more — and to know those innovations are grounded in powerful new directions of travel.
That’s why trends are so useful. They’re innovation fuel.
In this second email, I want to address the next important question. That is: how can you start spotting trends?
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When it comes to identifying emerging trends, the method I want to show you is founded in our old friends, change and fundamental human needs.
In email one we saw how this pair are the building blocks that make up any trend. Specifically, a new trend emerges when some change in the world — often a new technology — unlocks a new way to serve an age-old human need such as security, convenience, or status.
My friendly diagrammatic reminder:
The question then becomes: how can we see this process happening in the wild? The answer lies in using innovations as signals.
Innovation examples — new products, services, marketing campaigns and startups coming to the market now — play a central role in the trend-driven innovation method. We don’t watch innovations in order simply to copy them. Instead, we analyse them for underlying signals that change is unlocking a new way to serve an age-old human need. When this happens, new behaviours and mindsets emerge at scale; in other words, new trends emerge.
To see this happening, we need to take the innovations we see around us and ask two simple questions. First, what basic human need does this innovation seek to serve? Second, what (if any) change in the world is making this innovation possible now?
As trend spotters, we’re particularly on the lookout for innovations that are leveraging a recent change to serve a fundamental need in a new way. When we see an example of that kind, our trend radar should ping; here is a signal of a possible new trend.
Spot a cluster of examples that all leverage the same technology or recent change to serve the same basic need in a new way, and you have clear evidence of a new trend.
This method is simple, but powerful. Over the years, it’s allowed me to have an early view of countless trends that went on to become mainstream phenomena.
One example: think back to the early days of the internet, and platforms such as MySpace and Friends Reunited.
If back then you’d looked at those platforms through the lens of change and fundamental human needs, you’d have seen that they were leveraging a new technology — the internet! — to serve the age-old human need that is social connection in a new way. That would have empowered you to see the then-nascent trend that was social media. Which is now, of course, a way of life for billions.
Remember, when we trend spotters analyse examples in this way, we’re not making any predictions about the success or otherwise of these particular innovations. It’s the underlying signals we’re interested in. MySpace and Friends Reunited ultimately failed. But the trend they were signalling was real, and lasting.
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So far, so theoretical. How does all this look in practice. Let’s go step by step through the process of spotting a current emerging trend.
Take a look at this example:
Replika is an app fuelled by an AI large language model.
It is intended to act as a conversation partner, counsellor, and even a friend to its users.
The global consultancy McKinsey recently created Lili, a large language model trained on the organisation’s proprietary content, data, and frameworks.
Lili is being used by McKinsey consultants as a research and knowledge partner: an AI colleague who is always there to help.
Bunq, one of Europe’s largest startup banks, recently launched Finn, a friendly AI character.
Finn helps customers manage their money and understand their personal finances.
Three examples, outwardly each quite different. But let’s analyse them using the change and human needs framework.
It’s clear what recent change is making these examples possible. It’s AI, and in particular the amazing generative AI explosion we’re living through now.
And what human needs are these examples tapping into? In part, they’re about the straightforward delivery of information. But each of these apps go beyond that; in their own way they are about serving higher-order human needs, including the need for a sense of authentic connection, and even friendship.
What, then, do these examples reveal? They reveal that AI is unlocking a new way to serve the age-old human need that we can best describe as companionship. In this way these examples can lead us to the identification of a new trend for Virtual Companions, which will see rising numbers of people turn to AI-fuelled conversational entities for counsel, friendship, and a sense of emotional connection.
Replika was one of the original innovations that helped me identify this trend way back in 2017. Back then, the idea that anyone would want to be friends with an AI struck many as far-fetched, or even absurd.
But look what’s happening now: in October of last year Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta would roll out a range of AI friends across its platforms, including Facebook and WhatsApp.
In 2024, Virtual Companions are on the verge of going mainstream.
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Of course, agritech innovators such as you are not going to launch an AI knowledge partner for consultants, or a friendly personal finance assistant.
But the Virtual Companions trend should still prompt an urgent question. When millions are becoming friends with an AI companion — when even their bank is offering them a friendly conversational assistant — what do consumers and clients start to expect from you? What kind of Virtual Companion would prove useful to those you’re trying to serve?
In the next email, we’ll go deep on how to take a trend and use it to generate ideas for new products, services, business models and more that will be impactful in your industry.
But in the meantime, cultivate the habit of trend spotting that we’ve discussed here.
We all see new innovations every day, online and in the world around us. It can feel overwhelming. Remember, just start asking: what human need is this innovation tapping into? What change is making it possible?
Turn those questions into a habit, and you’ll soon start to find innovations that are serving core human needs in new ways. And that means newly-emerging trends that you can put to work inside your organisation.
In this way, you’ll be positioned to turn overwhelm into opportunity. And in the next email, I’ll show you how.
